Staff photo / Brian Yauger Phantoms defenseman Carter Murphy scans the ice for an open teammate during Friday’s game against Madison at Covelli Centre.

YOUNGSTOWN — Going into Friday’s game on a two-game skid, and shut out the night before, the Youngstown Phantoms needed to set the tone early.

A trio of first-period goals kickstarted the Phantoms early on Friday as they held off the Madison Capitols in a 4-2 victory.

“(Thursday’s 2-0 shutout loss) was probably the worst game I’ve seen in four years. We should actually probably refund all the fans for that one,” Phantoms coach Ryan Ward said. “But I thought the response today was good. Obviously, we had some honest conversations in the locker room. We can’t take things for granted. We have to be consistent going in the playoffs. I don’t care about anything besides playing our best hockey here in April. We challenged some guys today, and I thought their response was great. Kudos to them. Hopefully we’re treating this like a playoff series, and tomorrow’s the rubber match.”

Jesse Orlowsky broke the opening deadlock, taking advantage of a netfront scrum and forcing the puck past Madison’s Caleb Heil. Jakub Hes and Cal Huston fed the puck to Orlowsky, earning assists.

Defenseman John Stout got the equalizer for the Capitols, but it didn’t last long. Both Jack Hextall and Evan Jardine found the back of the net within 30 seconds of each other to give the Phantoms a two-goal edge after the opening period. Jardine picked up a helper on Hextall’s goal.

The Phantoms had multiple quality opportunities in the middle frame, but came up empty-handed. Madison got the only goal scored in the period, with left winger Michael Tang beating out Youngstown’s Owen Lepak.

Opportunities kept coming offensively for the Phantoms in the third period, but Heil continued to backstop the Capitols.

With two minutes remaining in the game, Madison pulled Heil. The Phantoms took advantage of the open net with forward Ryan Rucinski tapping in the empty-netter. The captain now trails former Phantom Jack Malone by five points for third place on the all-time scoring list.

Lepak finished the night with 21 saves.

One difference in Friday’s game was the Phantoms’ willingness to battle for pucks. While the team is always aggressive offensively, getting into the corners and fighting for possession has been lacking somewhat.

If the Phantoms are going to go as far as they want to in the postseason, getting into the dirty areas is going to be necessary.

“We’ve been talking about it for months, and it’s something that we have to commit to doing,” Ward said. “I thought they did a much better job tonight doing that, and obviously we got rewarded for it. I thought we were just, in general, on our toes skating. Last night, we weren’t skating, we weren’t competing, we weren’t battling. These guys have had a very difficult six weeks with travel and things like that, so it’s definitely not an excuse, but to see their response tonight was good, and now we have to build on that and carry it over.”

The first-place Phantoms (37-13-3-1, 78 points) square off with Madison today at 6:05 p.m. for the final game of the series.

Next week the Phantoms play host to Dubuque for a two-game set on Friday and Saturday. The March 14 game will be the last game at the Covelli Centre until the postseason.